Contents

Recap

Since she came back from San Francisco, Lily has been struggling to find her place in life. While she explores various options—life coach, marine biologist, slam poet, and being a beekeeper. She works an embarrassing job at a Hawaiian-themed restaurant. When the rest of the gang find out and start to mock her, she finally quits. So Ted offers her a job as an office assistant at his architecture firm.

There, Lily is put off by Ted's boss, Hammond Druthers. Druthers is full of himself and extremely condescending to Ted and the other employees. To punish Druthers, Lily "takes away one of his toys"—she steals his prized baseball "signed three times by Pete Rose". Lily explains to Ted that her own form of justice works well on her kindergarten students and that she even used it on a salesperson who was mean to Robin: she stole a pair of khakis that Robin gave to Ted.

Ted is horrified, even after Lily reminds Ted of how mean Druthers is. And the next day, after finding the threatening note "from" his baseball that Lily left behind, Hammond angrily threatens to start firing people until the thief comes forward. Ted urges Lily to return the ball but, when she refuses, he fires her.

The whole time, Lily has been urging Ted to show Druthers his design for the skyscraper that they are working on. Druthers's design is incredibly phallic but he is oblivious. Ted doubts himself compared to the legendary Druthers and refuses to step up. However, when the client sees Druthers's skyscraper, he is scandalized by the "big penis" and is about to walk out the door. Ted, realizing that he was wearing his "Justice Khakis" decides to finally show his own drawings. The client loves Ted's idea and Ted is promoted to project lead. He offers to hire Lily back but she declines explaining that she realized her true calling: being a kindergarten teacher.

Barney manages to convince her to let him into her bed but after a strenuous night, she stuns him with a grade of 'C-'. Marshall says that Barney seems to have only made her angry. Barney sees Professor Lewis again and again she is unimpressed. Finally, he begs her for a final chance. In the end, the gang end up visiting Barney in the hospital because he has dislocated a hip in his efforts to please the cougar. Thankfully, his efforts were rewarded with a 'B+' for Marshall's paper. Barney wants to try to get Marshall an 'A', but Marshall tells Barney to let her go; a cougar belongs in the wild.

Continuity

The building Ted's team has been working on is revealed to be for the Spokane National Bank. In Ted Mosby: Architect, where Ted was first seen working on his alternative design for the building, Future Ted tells his kids that the building he pointed out on their trip to Spokane was the first one he ever designed.

Future References (Contains Spoilers)

Barney has a different standard for women over 30 who are not cougars, as he mentions in Slap Bet and other episodes.

The results of Ted showing his design to the Spokane National Bank executives are seen in Atlantic City, where he mentions having been promoted, and Columns, where he struggles to fire Druthers, who now works under him.

Another older woman criticizes Barney's sexual performance in The Yips.

Memorable Quotes

Notes and Trivia

Goofs and Errors

When Barney pounds on the door of Marshall's teacher's apartment, we can see the set shake.

After Barney drank a sixpack of redbull, he threw them away. But when he enters the apartment, the redbulls were on the table in the background.

Lily is allergic to dogs, yet somehow she's petting Robin's at the beginning of the episode.

It's possible to be slightly allergic to dogs - some people can pet them but can't get their hair in their eyes, for example.

Allusions and Outside References

When Marshall shows Barney his law professor's office, Barney evaluates the professor as if she is a wild animal on a nature program, similar to the Discovery Channel or a Steve Irwin program.

Ted's boss has a baseball signed (three times) by Pete Rose, and even declares that Pete Rose's absence from the Baseball Hall of Fame is a travesty, even though since his retirement from baseball, Rose has admitted to betting on the Cincinnati Reds many times when he was the team's manager.

Barney says that, like John Mellencamp, he will get rid of the cougar once and for all (as Mellencamp was formerly known as John Cougar Mellencamp).

Music

Guests

Reception

Joel Keller of The Huffington Post notes that guest stars can upset the style of a comedy and of the two guest stars in this episode he felt Bryan Cranston was wasted as Ted's boss, but was impressed how Jane Seymour's character challenged Barney.[1]

Staci Krause of IGN gave the episode an 8.6 out of 10 stated that the episode was "another classic for the season, a story with quests all around. She praised Lily's "very funny story that she's a born kindergarten teacher", taking away things from Ted's boss after he was not behaving. However, she criticised the penis building storyline, calling it "anti-climatic and not worthy of the story". She also praised Barney's storyline, saying that once again he "stole the show", in addition to praising Jane Seymour's guest appearance. She concludes her review saying it was "all in all, a very fun journey and one worth taking again." [2]

The St. Petersburg Comic Review gave this episode 8.5 out of 10 stars. "Barney just can't satisfy her, can he? And it tears him apart!"